New Season of MCGG Virtual Meetings Begins Wed., September 8 at 7 p.m. with Where Do I Go From Here?

It is time for a new season of MCGG meetings. Our next MCGG and Let's Talk...Genealogy groups combined virtual meeting is Wednesday, September 8, 2021, at 7 p.m. using Zoom Meeting. The topic of the meeting is  ... Where Do I Go From Here?

Bring research questions, brick walls, or new finds to share with the group! Let's share our challenges, maybe someone will have an idea to solve them.

Why is this our most popular discussion topic? Because it is your opportunity to get your questions or problems hopefully answered. But not just from one point of view but often several. And, when you have a new genealogy find you have like-minded genealogists who understand that satisfaction when maybe family members do not.

MCGG members on the mailing list will receive the Zoom Meeting invite in the reminder email to be sent prior to the meeting. New attendees can obtain the invite link using the Library Events calendar on the website of the Mount Clemens Public Library.

We are still working on our 2021 Fall Schedule. Once we have it finalized we will let you know what topics are on board for the rest of the Fall schedule. Stay tuned!

See you soon someday at our favorite library!
LE

NEW TIP: How to Find Other Digitized Images Besides Death Certificates (psst... State Census!) on Michiganology.org

Remember the days of the Archives of Michigan's SeekingMichigan website and the availability of all those great records and information? Have you been frustrated by its replacement the Michiganology.org website? Yes it is great for the Michigan death certificates, but it has lacked of all those great records like the early Michigan state census along with 1884 and 1894 surviving state census and those numerous finding aids.

One tip given out about six months ago was to use the Internet Archive WayBackMachine to bring up a desired finding aid. It can be hit and miss but it does work if you know what was there to re-locate again. Using Internet Archive we have re-located many finding aids for various Macomb County records at the Archives of Michigan. Remember you are searching the WayBackMachine for the www.seekingmichigan.org website.

While watching a webinar today some multi-tasking was done to find back a list of what 1884 and 1894 state census enumerations survive for which Michigan counties. (Sadly, as most of us know Macomb County is not one of those counties.) While doing so another list was found on the ResearchWiki regarding Michigan Census (last updated in January 2021) that had a bunch of links to Michiganology which seemed useless since only the images of the Michigan Death Certificates have been there since the site's slow start. 

BUT ... clicking on one of those links a discovery was made! (A great example of the tip to go back and re-check a resource or website at a later date to see what has been added since you last searched. Of course, it took some digging to figure out how to find this discovery on the Michiganology site itself. This actual discovery was made via another website.)

Look What We Found ... Michigan State Census!

Apparently buried on the Michiganology website are the various state census images including a simple search engine. When the census images arrived on Michiganology we do not know but likely by January 2021 without any fanfare. For some reason this helpful and valuable collection does not clearly appear on the Research tab not even when you just Browse Collections. This collection does not clearly appear under the Advanced Search tab either. And the Custom Search does not give any clues/indications either.

How do you find them? You have to do some digging.

The first route is to go to the Research tab of the Michiganology.org website. Select the Browse All Collections. (You won't find them if you go straight to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.) THEN on the resulting page select the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Here you will get a table of ten collection results. Select Archives of Michigan. The revised table will give you three sub-collections: Archival Collections on Microfilm; Archival Collections; and Audiovisual Materials. 

Select Archival Collections. It is here you will find two collections: RG 2019-13 Archives of Michigan Legacy Digital Collections, ca. 1845-2018; and RG 81-46 Michigan Statehood Documents, 1797-1836. Select RG 2019-13 Archives of Michigan Legacy Digital Collections, ca. 1845-2018 and the table shows three sub-collections: Michigan State Census Records, 1827-1894; Archives of Michigan Finding Aids; and Archives of Michigan Map Collection. Select the Michigan State Census Records, 1827-1894.

Sidebar: The Archives of Michigan Finding Aids here do not appear to be the various ones from the old SeekingMichigan site and it appears to be only partially done at this time as not all counties seem to be represented.

From this resulting table you can search all the individual census years (1827, 1834, 1845, 1854, 1864, 1874, 1884 and 1894) at one time using the Search Within This Collection located on the left-side blue column. You can then Refine Your Selection by selecting a specific county or counties from the presented results list. Or you could select a specific census year and search just that year.

The search engine here is very simplistic. The search results list simply shows the record image thumbnail, a Title/Last Name which is actually the Year County, Township (City) and image number along with a column for Place. The Description/First Name column is blank. Click the image thumbnail or title to view the record image. Underneath the enlarged record image is an abstract where you will find the abstracted names listed as Lastname, First along with other information.

So we suggest searching either by just a Surname or by Surname, First. The simplistic search appears to read Surname, First as an exact "Surname, First" search. So as with any search engine play around with spelling.

The image viewer appears to be the same as for the Michigan Death Certificates. So if you are familiar with that you are good to go.

The second route is to go to the Advanced Search tab. This route is more direct to the searching. It actually brings you to a specialized search specifically for the Death Records Collection meaning it has search parameters based on what was indexed/abstracted from the death certificates. So from here, select the Custom Search option.

Under the Custom Search in the Matching search parameter type the Surname or Surname, First. Then in the Within search parameter select the radial circle for Specific Collections and type Michigan State Census. A pop-up list will appear from which you can select a specific census year such as "1894 Michigan State Census" or the entire collection with "Michigan State Census Records, 1827-1894." At this time you can also narrow your search to a specific County by using the Add Another Field under Matching. Type the name of the county and change the "Any Field" to "County." Then search to get your results table/list/grid.

Regardless of which route you take to get to the Michigan State Census, for best search results make sure you understand what is actually available for each census enumeration year. What counties and even what townships of those counties are included. You will not find what does not exist so save time and arm yourself with the knowledge you need to search better.

What else is buried on Michiganology? We are not sure. It appears a bit of digging is needed to see if more genealogy treasures have been quietly added to Michiganology. 

Have fun finding your buried treasures!

See you soon someday at our favorite library!
LE

Ancestry Terms and Conditions Effective August 3 DO Affect Users Greatly

Note: Originally posted at 2:57 ET August 7, 2021. Changed date of 30 days after.

In case you have not heard elsewhere on the internet, Ancestry.com has updated/changed its Privacy and Terms and Conditions effective August 3, 2021 with a 30 day window for pre-existing user-submitted content. Sometimes these changes just update language with no real change on users BUT ... sometimes aspects do change that effect users. This is one of those "but" times.

But do not panic. Read a couple other blog posts about this change in Terms and Conditions and decide what is best for you. Who should you read? We suggest the following:

Judy Russell aka The Legal Genealogist

One Big Change at Ancestry on August 4, 2021

Ancestry Retreats on August 6, 2021

DNAExplained

Clock is Ticking: In 28 days Ancestry CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT with Every Image in Your Tree on August 4, 2021

Ancestry Blog

Making Our Terms and Conditions Clearer on August 5, 2021

So what is the big change?

According to Judy Russell, "As of the change, effective yesterday (3 August 2021), a user can’t change his or her mind about any content uploaded to Ancestry: as of yesterday, you’ve just gifted the rights to that content to Ancestry, forever."

Read her blog post AND the reader comments, as usual Judy Russell explains it all well based on what is there in the Terms and Conditions text. This is Contract Law not Copyright Law. You (or whoever took say a photo, made the scan or wrote a story) still own the copyright to the item but as of August 3rd you are granting Ancestry perpetual ... non-revocable ... use ... (read the post for all the specifics.) She notes in response to a comment that DNA has a separate Terms and Conditions so do not panic about that.

Readers of the post of course questioned, what if I delete my content (such as photos, stories) that was there prior to August 3 does Ancestry still have use? One of Judy's responses was, "
There is a provision in the terms that says: “… material changes will not apply retroactively and will become effective thirty days after they are posted, except that changes addressing new functions in the Services or changes made for legal reasons will be effective immediately.” Anything uploaded on or after 3 August will be covered and I expect Ancestry will argue that anything retained more than 30 days after 3 August is covered."

Other questions brought up in Judy's blog post comments were what about photos you have uploaded to public trees and others have copied (downloaded and re-uploaded) to their trees instead of linked to the photo you uploaded. Pointing out that that person that copied does not own the photo/scan and has no legal ability to "grant" Ancestry this use and if I delete mine it does not delete the copy that person made. That was a question without an answer based on the text of the Terms and Conditions Ancestry posted. Additional questions without answers related to items in Private trees that are indexed and un-indexed.

Apparently this "change" is still fluid. The Legal Genealogist ran another post on the subject today that indicates that Ancestry has slipped in some additional wording to its Terms and Conditions after the date the change took effect. (See the Ancestry Blog post on August 5.)

The additional two sentences inserted after the August 3 effective date clarifies some of the questions brought up by many Ancestry users.

Essentially do NOT panic and delete everything. That just hurts yourself. Look through your online trees and decide: Is there anything I have uploaded like photos or stories that I do not own or I do own and do not want Ancestry to "potentially" use anyway it wants in the future? If yes, make sure you have a copy of that item on a your hard drive or another storage device for your personal use and then delete that photo, story, etc. from your online tree BEFORE September 1, 2021. If no, then you do not have any action to take. And in the future, consider that question before you upload anything else.

What about any photos other Ancestry users have copied and re-uploaded to their trees? If you have no problems with this Terms & Conditions granting Ancestry more rights, again you do not have any action to take. If you do have an image you want removed, that is a bit tougher task that may or may not work. Do as you would in that situation prior to this change. First contact that Ancestry user and ask the person to remove your photo scan (story, etc.) from their public tree. (It will be very difficult to learn if any private trees have a copy.) In this case, mention the change in Terms & Conditions and that as the owner of the original image you have decided not to grant Ancestry the rights to the image. Sometimes that "ask" will be enough to work. Other times, you will have to ask Ancestry for help but that route does not always work.

For Family Tree Maker users who sync their FTM trees to an Ancestry Member Online tree, be careful and check your manual or the MacKiev Software website support pages for the exact process. Likely to remove any photos synced online from only the online side and not the FTM side you will need to change the media image to "private" first on the FTM side. Then you can delete the image from the online side only. The original images should still remain on your hard drive or storage device so if needed you can re-link FTM to the image files. Hopefully recent sync problems have been resolved. So be sure to check the Sync Weather Report before syncing and be sure to make backups of your FTM tree files before syncing.

See you soon at Mt. Clemens Public Library! (someday soon)
LE